


your hope turned to dust, belonging to the ash

by thissupposedcrime



Series: wish we could sing no regrets, no emotional debt [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, M/M, Pining James, Season Seven spoilers, season seven in James POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-07 17:52:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16858615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thissupposedcrime/pseuds/thissupposedcrime
Summary: James wishes more than nothing and less than everything had changed, but he and Keith have never been a binary of anything other than extremes.Or, James tries to move on.“And how many planets has Voltron successfully liberated from the Galra?” It’s a question the Admirals should be asking, but here James is, in a packed storage room confronting the leader of Voltron. Here James is confronting Keith.“Well,” Hunk interrupts, counting off on his fingers, “first there was Arus, when we took down Sendak.”James lets his face speak for itself, turning his head around the storage room as if to praise them for how well they did.“Hey, he got revived by an evil witch named Haggar after Shiro launched him into space. We couldn’t control that,” Hunk complains. Nothing about this team leads to anything but regrets about opening his mouth.





	your hope turned to dust, belonging to the ash

**Author's Note:**

> Me: spends four months trying to make the lyrics of Lyn's Dark Sun a Jeith title  
> Also Me: But is this worthy of Dark Sun lyrics?
> 
> Not necessary to read the first but it would help. one-sided pining jeith, sheith
> 
> For Charlotte, like the first time, and Ena, for letting me complain about everything. Frantically written pre season 8 so I could move on and prepare.

Did any of them expect to live past the war? Was the iron in his veins, the swiftness of Rizavi flying, all brash bravado? James doesn’t know.

Here in the crowd for Captain Shirogane’s speech, Leif stands by his side. In another future he didn’t anticipate, she’ll ask, “What was Keith Kogane to you?”

* * *

Legacies are easy to justify. Legacies are even easier to chase.

As a student, James dreamed of Keith, shame-faced. Years built a fantasy, shifted the bitterness of youth over Keith’s resistance and skill towards a wish of functioning partnership. If Keith could be good, they would be great. Clenching his teeth over the name Shiro, quicksilver bright, was due to the insulting informality, not a clarion call to James’ jealousy. James wanted to follow in Lieutenant Shirogane’s footsteps, not possess who he had.

Besides, James was never partial to endearments.

But then came Kerberos, and Keith was nothing more than a ghost he never tamed.

Hindsight proved him a liar. James’ gaze on Keith wasn’t heavy in hopes they would follow patterns of collaboration between the highest scorers in the Garrison. It wasn’t the long echoed claims the shadow of competition were necessity for cadets to cleave themselves against.

Keith was his lost lust with bright eyes, until Commander Holt announced he was a savior of the universe.

* * *

There’s a burning in his throat, seeing Keith again, almost like swallowing grains of sand, feeling them embed into his sore muscles. The sand isn’t cloying, but choking. Indignantly, James attributes the pain to the harshness of the dust particles that must sneak in through his helmet.

At the front of his vehicle, a Galra soldier weakly twitches, mangled corpse stuttering into stillness. Outside, Keith is a phantom returned to life, eyes roaming over the moving combatants instead of watching James exit the car.

Of course James would find Keith here, at the end of the world, in a war they’re losing.

“I had it!” Keith shouts at Rizavi, staring her down. Despite the fact he didn’t have a weapon raised to target the drone before she fired cleanly, he remains frustrated, his friends baffled.

He didn’t have it.

Once, earlier in the destruction, James might have found this Keith reassuring: all fire and glory, ready to maim without a gun. Now, with millions dead in shallow graves, James doesn’t have the grace to temper himself. The rashness Keith always inspired flickers back to life with a twisted vengeance in his bloodstream. James snaps orders to get out of the way. His voice grates in his ears. He blames the dust, again.

Here, with shots firing like halos around their heads, he can’t afford to look at Keith for longer than a moment, a dark, blinding sun.

Keith doesn’t spare him a second glance. Only James will know how forcefully he pulls the trigger in response.

Rizavi is uncharacteristically silent. No teasing gloating calls out to James about killshots or speed. He hopes its the arrival of a prayer long unfulfilled that’s made her unsteady, explains away his ugly canvas of emotional turmoil. She shuffles Keith and the rest of his paladins into her vehicle, mercifully away from James and the competing visions of a Keith before all this, demanding attention in his head.

* * *

“Is this what the land here always looked like?” The petite blonde alien asks curiously, voice abnormally engaged, roughly ten minutes from base. It’s been years since he heard such perk, and it’s almost as off putting as seeing Voltron’s paladins pitiful in action. She’s inched forward from the backseat to peer through the windshield. Occasionally, her hair whacks against his helmet.

Lieutenant Shirogane has been nothing but accommodating, though, twisting in the front seat to give her more room for draping herself across the console. James follows suit and says nothing.

Originally, Lieutenant Shirogane appeared ready to offer her or one of the other aliens the passenger side, but the dawning look of horror on James’ face at the idea of his commanding officer crushed in the back likely stopped him.

“Did you not have deserts on the colony? Or sand?” Lieutenant (“Shiro’s just fine” except it’s truly not) asks in return.

“Deserts? Is that what this is? Is it normal of Earth or...?” She trails off, maybe hesitant to mention the Galra’s invasion changing the landscape after seeing the city.

“The terrain of Earth is actually pretty diverse. Some locations are closer to what you grew up with in the colony, like the forest and rivers but desert is rarer, uncommon but not the norm. It functions well as a Garrison base location due to the remoteness and space. A lot of up and coming pilots got the room to practice and navigate these skies. We won’t see it from this road but past a jagged mountain range on the other side of the Garrison is where we first found the Blue Lion,” Lieutenant explains to his rapt audience of three, the other aliens now also leaning forward.

Almost an afterthought, he adds, “Keith actually grew up out here.”

James tenses, hands gripping the steering tighter. In the far back, upon hearing the word Keith, a furry blue head lolls his muzzle against the headrest he was gnawing on. No one explained to him why a giant dog was attached to Lieutenant Shirogane’s side. Despite trying to trot after Keith, the dog was ordered to guard the Lieutenant and did so without a whine of protest. James doesn’t want to know.

(He already does.)

“Keith as a little spriteling? A wee one!” The male alien seems heartfelt and gleeful at the news Keith wasn’t born a fully grown teenager clenching a knife between his teeth. Any moment now James expects him or the blonde one, starry eyed, to ask for baby pictures.

“Are there portraits? Where might we find them?”

Lieutenant Shirogane laughs, but it’s a quiet, almost bittersweet kind. “Not that I’ve seen.”

These are the details of a pre-teen Keith that James remembers from the awkward days of schooling before the Garrison: the refusal to play on team sports, how they would find him tucked away in random corners of the school, the tilt of his head as he stared up at peers and teacher alike and made them feel small, Keith quiet, Keith alone, Keith impatient to break away from them all, for the first time, for the last time.

He wishes more than nothing and less than everything had changed, but they’ve never been a binary of anything other than extremes.

While the three aliens chat about Earth and picture a younger Keith toddling along the sand, James watches Lieutenant Shirogane slump against the seat, likely remembering the rumble of a different car, stolen but much beloved for what it returned.

* * *

Veronica shouts across the courtyard, joining her family in surrounding Lance. Katie Holt reunites with her terrifying mother. Voices are loud and adoring. Others mill around, and the aliens gaze at Earth with interest. Metaphorical bells ring.

None of that matters to James. He leans against the wheel of his cruiser, and tilts his head to watch Keith, helmet still on.

It’s a farewell, long delayed.

Under the steady protection of a barrier, Keith stands dutifully. Lieutenant Shirogane’s hand brushes against his neck for a second. He moves forward to address someone in a Garrison uniform. James doesn’t blink.

When Keith imploded like a solar flare after Kerberos, James did his best to ignore the sciences of collapsing stars. Humans are deaf to supernovas.

(They heard the click of buttons deleting simulator scores, the hushed whispers turned into damning shouts of concerned instructors, muffled crashes of items thrown around a hastily abandoned room. But they didn’t listen.)

One morning Keith was there, a boy who treated the desert as a personal playground, small and burning. Then, he wasn’t. The imagined warmth of a bright future together adapted to frustration, to apathy coiled around the muscles in James face.

He didn’t twitch or pine or mourn, even when the rumors of Keith’s return with the lost cadets spread like wildfire among the students.

Earth was invaded. James’ world ended. Commander Holt sold them stories of hope resting upon the strength of Voltron, the strength of Keith, and God if that wasn’t enough to bring it all back, to challenge him in the dark evenings as he reconciled two incompatible reflections.

Keith is the symptom and the diagnosis, the beginning and the end on a battlefield, the beginning and the end of James’ war of attrition against himself. He probably always will be, at least until the Galra are defeated.

Maybe it’s an ignored, unfulfilled hunger or that years of survival led to this singular moment of Keith and the others returning, heroic.

So James looks. His eyes can’t turn away from the one private contemplation he’ll allow himself.

Keith’s hair shakes past his shoulders as the alien named Coran makes vaguely threatening gestures to Commander Iverson. The dreams of before, in a shared bed, faded slowly, but eventually. An inkling of memory twitches through James now though, reminding him of a time where he wondered if the texture of Keith’s hair made it easy to grasp.

It’s not the broadness of Keith, nor the way his height suits him, still shorter than James. It’s not the weight of five years since Keith’s discharge decorating his skin. It’s not the legs that led to existential crises through half the dorms nor the eyes, a color none of them could ever describe.

This isn’t why James can’t stop watching. Devoid from him are superficiality and vanity. Keith’s always been beautiful, unforgettable.

But what he wasn’t was obedient, shaking hands with Commander Iverson and gracefully navigating introductions between aliens and Galaxy Garrison alike. Murky depths spill out in front of James, muddy without details clarifying what encouraged Keith to be good, to respect, to refrain.

It wasn’t James. It sure as hell wasn’t the MFE leader who had to live as other died, ordered to believe Keith and Voltron were the promised saviours they bid their time for. It wasn’t the abandoned rival of lesser skill, who viewed Keith and friends foolishly romp around a battlefield and had to drag them out.

So James looks and looks and looks at this never answered question of what might have been... until Keith looks back. James has no desire to see a blank stare questioning in return, James so forgotten Keith doesn’t remember to glare.

Walking away, he thinks they weren’t worth waiting for.

* * *

First impressions aren’t kind in regards to the rest of his team and the Voltron paladins.

“They know nothing,” Kinkade concludes as the war room meeting breaks up, James’ bark about chain of command still ringing in his ears, and the disgusted looks flashing across the Paladins faces. It’s true, painfully so.

His team expected more, not the ignorance cast proudly at their feet by the paladins. War is sacrifice, and apparently the defenders of the universe remain untrained at necessary loss.

Maybe they were fools to expect better than a ragtag group without their weapons, electing to do what they pleas in lieu of what the Galaxy Garrison deems best. Apparently it remains another responsibility of theirs to shake the idealization from Earth’s destined heroes.

James wishes he were more surprised.

Rizavi hums, low and curt, from the back of her throat. She’s too well trained to break formation and confront the presumption of childish hope.

Leif mutters, “I’m running simulations.” Only at his nod does she sharply turn away.

The MFEs will remain strong, unflinching in the face of Voltron’s naievity. It’s their only chance at survival.

Unfortunately, Keith is a paladin, and that somehow means something to James in ways he can’t formulate or face, though it really shouldn’t be this hard to define. It means annoyance and a future problem, that is all.

Naturally, the war room is only the first of confrontations James has with Hunk that night. He and Veronica are walking to another meeting when he spots Keith, Katie, Hunk, and Lance huddled together in what used to be a lounge and now functions as storage. Kosmo sits at Keith’s feet, gnawing on a metal rod.

“Is that valuable?” James asks. He doesn’t trust any of this group not to let the dog run rabid in a twisted sense of consolation of their friend. Guardians of the galaxy seem selectively lax about which rules they follow.

“Well, it’s his from space, so yes,” Katie tells him, remarkably unimpressed by his existence. He spent his formative years pining after Keith in new, twisted ways he wasn’t ready for. She and her anger are  _nothing_  in the face of that.

Veronica steps forward to break the tension, tugging her brother into her arms. If anyone deserves a reunion, it’s her, all grit, determination, and smarts. He begrudges her nothing, the flush of relief upon her return from death still an occasional twinge between his false ribs.

Behind the paladins, a white board is set up, multiple markers spread across the box they’ve appropriated for a table. James peers at the board of crudely drawn images, four remarkable in similarity to the MFE pilots, and xs and os. He sees red.

“Are you playing pictionary while we plan how to reclaim the planet?” His voice remains composed, controlled. The tone isn’t surprising anymore, war strong, but with Keith in the room, he too easily recalls the cracked voice and ire of his teenage years before a fight broke out. It’s an unnecessary reminder.

“Yes. It’s been a good team building activity before we fight the Galra.” Keith is blunt. Veronica stills, quiet, next to him. Her tightening grip on Lance appears painful. He attempts to squirm out of her hold while simultaneously gaping at Keith.

“Pictionary,” James repeats. Lance wheezes like he’s lost the ability to breathe. Veronica’s fingers leave imprints in his uniform.

“It works for Voltron.” Hunk and Katie mimic Lance’s expression, eyes bulging, but James only has focus for one. Story of his life.

“And how many planets has Voltron successfully liberated from the Galra?” It’s a question the Admirals should be asking, but here James is, in a packed storage room confronting the leader of Voltron. Here James is confronting Keith.

“Well,” Hunk interrupts, counting off on his fingers, “first there was Arus, when we took down Sendak.”

James lets his face speak for itself, turning his head around the storage room as if to praise them for how well they did.

“Hey, he got revived by an evil witch named Haggar after Shiro launched him into space. We couldn’t control that,” Hunk complains. Nothing about this team leads to anything but regrets about opening his mouth.

“Don’t you have a meeting to attend? Hate to keep your CO waiting,” Keith says, leaning against the box and blocking James’ view from their diagrams. CO sounds like acidic poison, and for the nanosecond between blinks, they’re bickering children again.

“And shouldn’t you be with the rest of your team?” The name Shirogane goes unspoken. He’s the grandest presence in any room Keith occupies. But this is James’ planet, James’ game. Keith’s distractions are nothing anymore.

“Sounds good. Let’s go everybody,” Keith announces, shoving the board into Hunk’s hands. James shifts his weight to avoid being clipped by an unwieldy corner.

As James watches Keith leave, because history repeatedly taught him there was nowhere else to stare, Keith flanks Hunk, hand resting gently on his shoulder. On Hunk’s other side, Katie Holt leans against him, but tilts her face to glower at James as they walk away. He barely notices, distracted by the way Keith’s lips move and his eyes dart around. Katie and Lance go in one direction, Hunk and Keith another.

This is going to come back to haunt them. A small spark of tolerance, one he can’t control, attempts to chase away his lingering frustration at the interlopers who don’t know the trauma of losing Earth to monsters. He thinks its surviving on the attention of Keith, secretly longed for.

He wants it dead and gone.

“We can’t tell the Admirals about this without proof they’re up to something,” Veronica whispers. She’s devoted to her brother, sympathetic to his friends, but they haven’t been there, haven’t realized they can’t dictate how the war goes. “Besides, they don’t have their lions.”

“Keith attracts action and explosions. Let’s follow him,” James replies. Like a robot lion ever dictated Keith’s behavior before, he almost scoffs.

The dormant creature in his stomach revives again, now with a far less quiet murmur of approval, as the two of them watch Hunk and Keith try to steal a car.

Or maybe it’s deja vu.

* * *

James spends their little illegal adventure of locating Hunk’s family protecting Keith from himself.

It’s tiring work, and James musters up enough sympathy to pray for Lieutenant Shirogane’s efforts all those years ago.

“What are you doing?” Keith hisses the fourth time he tugs him away from walking through an unsurveiled alleyway. He has Keith pressed against the debris of a crumbling wall.

“I didn’t come on this mission to watch the leader of Voltron, the hope we’ve all been waiting for, march out into Galra patrols,” James hisses back. He only has to tilt his head down slightly to glare directly into Keith’s eyes.

“There isn’t a patrol here,” Keith leans forward, and James feels his muscles coil against the hand he has pushing Keith’s shoulder to the wall.

“Say that to the drone we had to shoot ten minutes ago.” Goddamn.

“I can take care of myself and my team, thanks,” Keith says, finally shoving away James.

“Sure you can.” Keith doesn’t turn around, but it’s likely only because Hunk is there, waiting, watching not them but the ruins of the city he used to visit. He’s quieter than anticipated, and James thinks the shock is finally settling in. Good. It’ll make this easier for them all.

Veronica remains silent but contemplative. She’s dangerous that way, observant. James never knows of what, and that’s a separate battle entirely.

Moment later though, she waves and darts away. They march to the higher ground of a semi-intact building rooftop. Peering through the scope of his sniper rifle as she weaves through cars and obstacles, James can’t help the pleased and relieved tone when he announces, “She did it.”

As he reassures Hunk, James notices Keith, from the corner of his eye, smiling softly in approval. Something inside him preens.

Later, when James cautions Keith back as they approach the sewer grating to contact a rebel leader, he accepts the order. Without hesitation, Veronica does the same to Hunk. James creeps up the ladder, pressing himself to the top so he’ll be the only one noticed and shot.

* * *

“They need me to be strong now,” Hunk tells Keith, voice unwavering but quiet. He continues to stare out the window, Keith nodding by his side. He’s gazing outside too, grim faced. It’s still jarring to James, who watched the progress develop over years. This wasn’t the Earth they left.

But, if Hunk’s resolve is even a tenth as powerful as his tone, it’s an Earth they’ll save.

“Hunk, I promise, the rebels will keep observing your parents and update us if something changes. Can you describe them for us?” Veronica questions gently, grabbing a paper notebook from Terry, their best rebel liaison. Hunk jumps slightly in surprise.

“Oh, uh, sure. Thanks. Thanks a lot.” No one comments on the wetness in the corners of his eyes, but there’s no shame in it.

“Thank you too, for helping Hunk. We know we have allies in this we can trust to watch our backs and, more importantly, our families. We’re going to end Sendak’s reign and reunite everyone” Keith says, suddenly in front of him. His hand extends forward. James isn’t conscious of raising his own hand to grip in return, but he does.

Maybe it really can be this easy. Maybe everything Commander Holt promised wasn’t a lie, with the coward of the Garrison radiating strength and the rebel James once thought he hated a compassionate leader. Maybe he was wrong to hold on to the expectations of a Keith long outgrown.

“Always,” James replies, gripping tighter. “Always.” It’s the only word he can remember.

Keith smiles, and something in James settles into place, easy.

* * *

Veronica drives them home, Hunk beside her and staring outside at the dust and mountains.

Keith sleeps compact, a leg tucked underneath and the other bent at the knee as he dozes in the back. His head tilts toward the window, but James doesn’t think for a moment he’s not a noise away from a ferocious wake up or swift swing of his knife.

Rumors said Keith never rested. They’d claim he was too busy breaking records or sneaking off base. James wouldn’t know, normally, placed in a separate barrack.

Once, he saw Lieutenant Shirogane’s arm gently placed across Keith’s shoulders like a blanket, carefully guiding him away from the library. Keith yawned his way down the hall, slumped against a softly voiced ‘Shiro’ the entire time.

They were so dumb back then.

As he watches the moon cut a slice of silver across scarred cheekbones, James feels a lot more than dumb now.

* * *

“We thought one of the paladins snapped and killed you,” Rizavi announces as he stumbles into the hangar, bleary eyed for their early morning mechanical inspection.

“You saying I can’t hold my own against them?” James says, trying to muffle a yawn. He hasn’t slept since Team Voltron arrived, sneaking back to base in the pre-dawn light only to report back to Commander Iverson what he and Veronica did. Either the lack of sleep has led to memory loss or Commander Iverson has a bigger soft spot for the paladins than previously known, because James was just sent back to his duties without reprimand.

“You can’t,” Kinkade replies, unaware he can’t deliver a swift killing blow to the high James is still riding from hours earlier.

“Did they find what they were looking for?” Leif asks before he can tell Kinkade off. The other MFE pilots stare at her, baffled.

James’ responding nod feels a touch more hysterical than his sleep deprivation should explain, but that’s Leif.

* * *

Peace is a novelty, and it’s hardly present, now, but helping Hunk seems to have soothed the lingering hurts from the paladins, paused their quest for vengeance on behalf of their friend. Sendak remains the only enemy on a mutual battlefield. At the very least, it’s a nice shift from feeling like he’s awaiting a strike from Keith.

“Huh, that’s neat,” Rizavi mutters to the other MFE pilots, idle on the side of the conference room and awaiting the briefing. She juts her chin to the doorway Lieutenant Shirogane’s walked through.

His arm is huge, and parts of it are glowing. Leif blinks in rapid succession, processing quickly and moving on. Unlike Rizavi, always ready to talk technology, James knows Leifsdottir possesses too much grace to ask invasive questions of a commanding officer, especially in public.

“Do you think someone could hang off it?” Rizavi asks. If she wasn’t hiding on the other side of Kinkade, James would lean his weight on her foot.

“Depends on the person,” Kinkade says in response, voice also pitched low.

“Shut up,” James hisses back, nervous flush creeping up his neck as Keith takes a seat next to Lieutenant Shirogane. Too many people are staring, and that’s never a good sign. Keith’s apparently the only one apathetic to the new limb, leaning against it slightly as he adjusts in his own chair and begins opening his tablet. He frowns at something on a screen. The Lieutenant pushes back against the weight, hand large enough to wrap around Keith’s upper arm. Fingers lightly move across Keith’s shoulder instead. Keith smiles, a tiny, loving quirk of lips.

“- and that’s not accounting for magnetic polarity,” he hears Leif say as he stops staring. He shoots her a look that’s conveys more despair than warning.

“To be fair, you didn’t tell her to shut up,” Rizavi offers. She snaps to attention, noticing Commander Iverson. The rest of the MFEs follow suit and the meeting, blessedly, begins.

* * *

“Does he have a name?” James feels it’s only fair to know about the space wolf drowning his vehicle in drool. They can swim to the scouting mission of Base One at this rate.

Two female voices groan in unison.

“He’ll tell me when he’s ready,” Keith replies, hand brushing along the wolf’s flank. James is struck by the impossible charm of it, Keith waiting evermore patiently to listen, a boy and his dog, or a half-alien (and God, what a shock) and a space wolf.

“Kosmo. Call him Kosmo,” Katie Holt implores from the backseat.

“Don’t assume he accepts that,” Keith protests.

“He literally responds to Kosmo.” Fittingly the dog tries to turn around to face the voices, slobbering over Allura’s arm in the process.

“Every time,” she sighs.

James bites his lip to hide a grin.

Hours later, he’ll remember this when he says, “Gotta get me one of those,” as Keith evaporates in a poof of light.

* * *

“It’s a nice ship,” Keith calls out as he approaches from the back of James’ fighter, the next day.

“Better than you’re used to,” James replies, wiping a cloth against the glass window. It’s a common refrain between pilots, but Keith knows there’s no heat to it, not with a lion lingering off a planet safe and secure.

Kinkade raises an eyebrow before focusing back on his own plane. Leif doesn’t even acknowledge him.

It doesn’t coax a laugh like it would anyone else, but that’s the point. Keith’s too hyper attuned to detailing the MFE, walking around it, to respond to a jab.

“They had us grounded for months in the simulators to prepare for the new technology,” James continues, “Commander Holt’s intense with the upgrades.”

Keith’s head pops up from wherever he was inspecting. “You should see Pidge. Shiro’s nightly routine used to include fetching her from her lab and dragging her to a bed.” There’s nothing but love there in the tone. Keith eyes the other side of the hangar, where Lieutenant Shirogane was held up by the Admiral.

Awkwardly, the next sentence pours out of James without thought. “I’m glad you found him.” It’s true though. There’s love stories and then there’s this. He’s had enough time to find acceptance on who Keith loves, if nothing else.

Keith’s gaze remains on the Lieutenant, as if not only hung the moon but the stars and was single-handedly the source of all good in the universe. “Always.”

James doesn’t think about his own vow.

* * *

Flying to the Zaiforge Cannon base with Keith is a quiet task. They’re focused on the mission. Veronica and Commander Holt’s voices give directions and ask for status reports. His flighter slices through air currents. Occasionally, James thinks he hears Keith exhale over the loud thump of his own pulse.

It eventually becomes a fond, relieved sound. James imagines a mighty roar before the radio echoes triumphant noises from the other paladins about their lions being en route to Earth.

When he departs, Keith hesitates long enough to say, “Stay safe.” It’s a command, not a request.

James nods, but he’s too slow for his returned “You too,” to be heard.

(Once, hindsight proved him a liar in his feelings for Keith. Hindsight now proves him a fool.

Before the day is over, he’ll watch what he assumes is Keith’s corpse be escorted out of the Black Lion, blood dripping off his limbs, bones poking out of skin precariously, as if more are moments away from tumbling out. Captain Shirogane’s hand will cradle his face, rhythmically chant Keith like a prayer. The space wolf’s panicked yips will be deafening.

Frozen, James returns to this moment, these moments of them alone, good soldiers with a shared cause and the ability to get along. He wants to replay the scene, jam the autopilot function forever so he can turn around and beg Keith to survive, to let him spill out every curved secret he hid within.

I don’t know how to make you less important in my life, but God I want to try so I can keep watching you steal stars and cars and break formation without feeling unsettled by not holding you but be settled in wanting to. I wasted so much time Keith, thinking of you as a pain, as a hero, as an object I could transform once I got over hating you because I did, I did hate you when we were young, but I’d have loved you as you are now then and I could learn it now, again, eventually, be right about it. I think I’m already started even though there’s no point to it, not with him but that’s okay. Just let me fly against you and challenge you and learn from you but please if there’s any request you listen to from me, it’s don’t be dead. Come back, scarred and dangerous, come back, don’t make me chase a ghost.)

“Griffin, back to base.”

“Yes sir!”

* * *

“Therapy’s going to be fun” Rizavi cackles as Captain Shirogane transforms Atlas.

James can’t help but agree, awestruck for the hundredth time today.

But the war isn’t over yet, and Earth remains in danger.

* * *

They’re going to win. It’s a pretty song humming through the particles in his bloodstream and a bitter aftertaste in his mouth, knowing all they lost and can’t retrieve.

Atlas violently jars out of position, and Rizavi slams both palms and a leg against the wall to stay steady as they trek across the ship to the bridge and Captain Shirogane. Leif bumps into him but is already moving forward before James can wrap an arm around her to help her balance. Kinkade remains firm.

They’re close to the end of the hall when Altus finally settles down. The floors don’t feel study with conquest but limp, a marionette with frayed strings. As the bridge door opens, James sees Veronica, Coran, and Commander Iverson in various states of distress but all alive. Captain is hunched over, supported by a railing, yet the image of supposed frailty disappears in a second as he stands tall again.

Harsh static trills over the communications to Voltron before quieting down as Keith speaks.

One day, they’ll be a movie. It’s not a revelation, nothing more than common fact. Since they’ve won, since they’re the heroes that saved the planet from Sendak, they’ll continue forever as immortal legend. The Paladins. The Lions. Atlas himself. Maybe actors will portray the MFEs with their quiet acceptance of authority. Maybe they’ll be cast as interlopers, distracting from the main drama of a space saga of Voltron. Maybe they won’t matter at all, because the war was only won with a starry eyed collection of humans and aliens and whatever deity blended Keith’s genetics together into a knockout punch.

Kinkade’s first love was film. His second wasn’t even flying, but it was the responsible choice, the legacy choice going back four generations. James isn’t sure why he remembers that detail, but he wonders now, obsessively, about the film of them all.

The lie of them all. Because that’s all the film can be, dishonesty incarnate and details dead before the first sound check. The truth of this scene can’t be articulated.

A red light on the wall casts color on Leif’s face. No director will know James is sparing half a second to think of her, years younger, blood trailing down half her face after a bumpy crash post-victorious skirmish. His hands fluttered, hesitant, instead of reaching out to touch her, instead of calling out for a medic like Kinkade or bouncing out of her ship like Rizavi, landing cleanly. It was just him and just her, unperturbed as blood mattered her blonde hair to her head. He gripped her shoulder, tight, because he forgot how to be gentle during the war. Maybe they all did.

“My ship needs hydrogen peroxide before the blood stains settle.” She sounded bored. It galvanized him, finally, in the first and last time the thought of them dying startled him into stillness. When the red glow fades from her eyes during the flashing of Atlas’ emergency lighting, James moves past the memory.

Keith’s voice is clear now, but it’s not for them, any of them really, except Captain Shirogane and Coran.

“It’s been an honor flying with you.”

A film will never get this anguish right.

Captain Shirogane had been many things to the Galaxy Garrison over the years: student, pilot, golden child, scapegoat, poster boy, the devil’s tamer, now captain, now Atlas. James doesn’t see any of that, for once, just a miserable despair James knows to look for when the world is being taken from you.

Afterall, he was Keith’s first dumb, hormonal victim, and he’s still under a thrall. Four years of silence and nothing but ugly memories be damned.

But that ignorant affection for a ghost, for a dream, is nothing in the fact of a love like this extinguishing.

James wonders if the mix of grief, wanderlust, and pining that paralyzes him when thinking about Keith is a universal inevitably for anyone who spent more than a passing interest trying to envision the color of his eyes. Does Captain’s skin feel a chill now that a supernova is imploding, robbing them of his warmth? Is he like James, immobility originating from his hips, rooting him to the ground? Is Keith tearing apart his heart one last time in a quest to make a final resting place, shuddering through his veins at a tempo no one understands? Or is it a no-nonsense voice many coveted but only Shiro heard transform to supportive adoration whispering in the kinder parts of memory?

Surviving to this moment- it’s feeling like a blues song, an instrumental beginning without words, because they’re not needed. You just need to listen, listen to authority, listen to the tone of a bored genius, listen to the scrape of fisted flesh against face time and time again, and then a final time with pilot error soundtracking as accompaniment.

It’s being forced to whisper instead of roar during a fight, the red of the fury bleeding out before a crescendo concludes. You can’t scream at him to stay, can’t scream at him to look your way because you aren’t his musician, you aren’t his muse, and James accepted that a long time ago.

The music stops and now it’s a frozen lake, life dead underneath due to unexpected frost. Its James, waking up from dreams he never asked to have, indiscretions he never had a real lover in Keith to experience. It’s in the intentions unsaid and unwanted in a situation unchanging since the day he met Captain Shirogane, since the day Keith met Shiro.

But James never told Keith, for all the obvious reasons and for all the reasons he can’t put words to.

And now, watching Captain’s profile glow deathly pale through the reflections of the various live recordings of lions crashing to the ground, watching Atlas crumble under the weight of a loss he never thought to worry about, James understands he isn’t the only one who never said a single word.

* * *

Most of the paladins wake and recover quickly, all but one within days.

Ending the Galran invasion doesn’t miraculously grant the MFE pilots free time. The world needs rebuilding, and, unlike Voltron, James and his team are aware and healthy enough to continue the work. Eventually, when they rise, they’ll fly off into the sunset and fight in the cosmos. The MFEs will remain to transition from defending to protecting without the Voltron forces’ support. Drills continue, outreach expands, sleep schedules don’t shift to peacetime hours.

But it doesn’t take any cajoling on James’ part for the team to unanimously agree to use their unscheduled time to visit the awake paladins in the hospital wing. Parents and civilian allies have long been sent home. The MFE’s sterling reputation for never truly disobeying orders or requesting special privileges can afford the dent of ignoring visiting hours.

Foolishly, they begin by visiting Allura. James respects her, both as a dignitary and a fighter, but he underestimated her willingness to answer all of Leifsdottir’s questions of Altea, especially once Coran and Romelle return from finding dinner, flagrantly ignoring the rules of when they can be in the medical wing. Rizavi only encourages them all, hitting James’ chair the first time he gently reminds Leifsdottir they can visit again. It takes multiple frustrated nurses and Kinkade lifting Leifsdottir off the ground for them to escape, silencing Allura’s attempts to explain the Altean alphabet to Leifsdottir. Coran’s voice echoes through the closed door.

Leifsdottir’s repeating the symbols’ sounds to herself as they walk down the hall. Kinkade nods along. One day, an Altean or an unknown alien are going to accidentally reveal secrets to Kinkade, assuming his silence means ignorance. This nursery tune will come to haunt them all if Kinkade finds it worth mentioning.

“It’ll be a super quick visit, we promise! They deserve it, don’t they? Cooped up like this can’t be fun,” Rizavi chirps to a nurse on duty as they near Lance’s door. Sometimes you just need to sicc her on someone to save the rest of the team. James’ acknowledgement of this is why he’s team leader.

Besides, Veronica has tracked in over a dozen family members to see Lance, all loud exuberance and youthful love. The staff know half of the MFE don’t speak above a normal sound level most of the time. It’s fine.

The staff also know one of their own hasn’t woken, hasn’t healed enough for visitors of any kind. It’s why he didn’t actually pull Leif out of the room, letting Allura focus on something other than Keith, quiet, Keith, unstable.

Rivazi knocks and nudges Lance’s door open once he calls out. She immediately falls back against the door, shoe having slid against two bouncy balls. Numerous others litter the room’s floor. Weeks ago, James swore he would never ask about this sort of thing when it comes to the paladins.

Lance is cheerful, in good spirits. He dutifully entertains, answers questions dictated by Veronica, as if she hadn’t had breakfast in his room or darted over to see him in-between afternoon meetings.

He requests information on how Earth is recovering, gets excited watching the newest vids on the datapad James brought with their appropriate security clearance. It’s a good meeting, if brief. James sees the tension, the exhaustion in his eyes though, as they dart around the screen, trying not to linger on the images of the Black Lion. Under the sheets, a fist clenches, wrinkling fabric. He wonders if it would be worth his faulty attempts at reassurance, but if Veronica failed, he has little chance at success.

Sometimes, for all his faith in Keith, he stares at the ceiling and wonders when. Recently, as the updates don’t come, he’s begun to question _if_.  

“Hey, guys, before you go, can you help refill this for me?” Lance asks, reaching across his bedside table for a large circular container and gesturing to the balls on the floor. Despite sounding like he’s gargled with glass, voice scratchy and bandaged, he’s trying for cheer, grinning broadly.

“Normally the balls bounce back but they spilled all over when my family visited. Veronica refused to help me,” Lance says the last part forlornly, like Veronica is a great source of sorrow.

James knows better after spending a war with her. “Why wouldn’t she help you?” This has to be a trap. From the corner of his eye, he notices Kinkade and Leifsdottir methodically fill the container with over a dozen balls the size of a fist.

Lance smiles back, and, if his throat wasn’t so sore, would likely try whistling and staring at the ceiling in a parody of innocence. “No idea. Guess she’s not used to indulging my every whim anymore. Oh thanks!” He says to Kinkade as he takes the container. Settling it on his lap, Lance grabs a green ball and tosses it lightly in the air. Cradling it against his palm, Lance pulls his arm back with a wince and throws the ball against the opposing wall. It is shockingly loud.

“Holy hell!” Rizavi screeches. Kinkade and Leifsdottir stare at the ball, watching it bounce back to Lance’s bed. Lunging over the side, he reaches to catch the ball but pulls at something on his side, needing to immediately sit up. Within seconds, he stops gritting his teeth and throws another ball, the thump louder.

Veronica, James thinks as his team watches, did nothing to prepare them for her brother.

After three more tosses, the new ball fails to come back, rolling under the bed. Kinkade lets it. He does not offer to pick it up.

The loss does nothing to stop Lance, who ferrets through the container for a blue ball, slightly larger than the last. Satisfied, he uses it to batter the other wall twice more, a weird grin on his face, as if he was trying to convince them all was well with his actions.

“Why?” Rizavi finally breaks the ice to inquire. James really wishes she didn’t. It’s a member of Team Voltron. It’s easier just to accept this sort of shit and focus elsewhere. Maybe this is how aliens taught them to process grief.  

“You’ll see,” Lance replies brightly. “Hey, did anyone keep track of how many times I hit the wall?”

“Seven,” Leifsdottir states, definitively. Considering they don’t have visual contact face to face during most of their training exercises, they’ve all ignored James’ attempts to teach them morse code. Still, he blinks  _no_ in her direction.

“It was seven,” she repeats. That’s not the no he meant, if she actually knew what he was signaling.

“Huh. Wow. Okay. Better up my game,” Lance says, mainly to himself. James reaches for the container, thinking of Veronica and everything she doesn’t put him through.

He’s too slow, but James tells himself its pity for the injured.

Lance continuously clutches balls, only to toss them at the wall again and again.

“Why?” James tries. Kinkade subtly peers at the medical documents at the foot of the bed. James prays it lists a concussion and that the defender of the universe’s fate isn’t like this all the time.

“You’re supposed to have seen.” Lance sounds confused, borderline mildly distraught. James thinks of excusing himself to call Veronica about her brother when the door swings open with a wild, harsh _bang!_

Katie Holt, clad in an oversized shirt and shorts, half her head and left arm covered in bandages and her left leg in a walking boot, pushes past Kinkade, her single-minded focus on Lance. One hand clutches a pillow. The other holds what appears to be a video game, but James doesn’t get more than a glance as she shoves them into Leifsdottir’s hands.

“I! Was! Trying! To! Sleep!” Each word is punctuated with a beat of her pillow against Lance’s prone form, and his muted, low groans. The thumps are weak, and Katie struggles to lift the pillow higher than her collarbone. Finally, she rears back, pinwheeling her arms for a second as she rights her balance, and hits him across the face, stunning him into silence and leaving the pillow on the bed.

“Excuse me. Sorry about this,” Katie says to Leifsdottir, seizing first the wires and connecting them to the television in the corner and then what is proven to be a game system, which she plugs into the wall. Kinkade is used as a stoic crutch during the process.  

While she’s been working on her electronic set up, Lance has slowly moved on the bed, leaving her plenty of space and placing her pillow next to his hip. A second blanket has materialized out of nowhere. Katie climbs up gingerly, making herself comfortable in the bed. Stretching out, she hands Lance a controller, keeping the other for herself. When the game boots up, she wiggles a bit more, elevating the pillow and her head by resting it against Lance’s stomach with a slight wince until she she’s still and comfortable.

James and his team watch in silence, glancing at each other for mutual confirmation that they’re the normal ones in terms of team dynamics.

“If you move on me during a boss fight again, I’ll choke you with the wires.” She’s not even looking at Lance, watching the pixels on the screen load.

“That was one time!” He complains, loudly, but the sound is painful to hear, possibly more painful to shout. Veronica says his hearing was partially damaged in the crash, but he was also the first to wake, so his blessing are large.   

“One time,” Rizavi mouths. They’re spectators now. James tilts his head toward the door, but it goes noticed by Lance.

“Veronica says Pidge is a nice girl and should be allowed to rest without me distracting her,” Lance tells them, answering a question James forgot he asked. “Veronica doesn’t know the truth.” He groans as an elbow gets him in a sensitive spot, but James notes Katie’s careful aim, prodding at a place without bandages or bruise. .  

“Hi guys. Sorry for interrupting. How are you feeling? Shiro told me none of you were injured but it’s nice to know for sure,” Katie Holt says, truly noting their presence in the room for the first time. James’ hand raises in a half wave, almost against his will.

“Everyone came out fine, thanks for asking,” James responds. “It’s nice to see you up. Do you need anything? We can talk to the staff on our way out.”

“A change of room,” she announces, brightly. Lance’s knee twitches in response, jolting her left arm up for a moment. She presses it back down as Lance sticks his tongue out at her.

“Technically, you’re no longer in your room,” Leifsdottir points out.

“Unfortunately,” Katie agrees, but it’s clear she’s content curled up here, Lance’s hand occasionally patting her hair in a soothing motion.

Despite the regulations she’s breaking and the adamancy of the doctors to keep the paladins calm and medicated, James doesn’t think for a moment of reporting either of them. Katie stares him down all the same, her mother’s daughter, as if she doesn’t trust him not to walk out and rat them out to the first doctor he sees. Lance is busy making jovial remarks to Rizavi and Kinkade, but James knows the battlefield, knows the synergy of two people bonded. Lance is primed to respond in anger if Katie does, even if he doesn’t look it, seemingly distracted and happy.

He thinks of telling off Hunk, of the tension with Keith no one was prepared for. James understands this is a team of long memories, of necessary close quarters.

“It was really kind of you guys to visit,” Lance says as Katie stops sizing him up, shifting to talk technology with Rizavi and Leifsdottir. It’s a silent tag team, and terrifying in its effectiveness.

“We should let you rest,” James decides. All but Rizavi, finally getting a chance to geek out, look ready to move on.

Kinkade agrees. “We still need to greet Hunk.”

“Oh, uh, I don’t think you’ll be able to tonight? Hunk had a long day and passed out,” Katie tells them. Rizavi despairs.

“Wait, again? He couldn’t last for a little while longer?” Lance interjects. “I didn’t get a chance to visit him yet.”

“Hunk had his mom bring him two large sticks so we’ve been using them to prop open our doors and chat at each other when we’re awake. I think he tired himself out telling his family about Keith,” she says, voice trailing off and stare distant. Lance sighs behind her.

“Sounds like Hunk.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, at least his family will have plenty of warning before they meet him. Besides, his mom is going to try to fight Krolia to adopt him after she finds out how he helped locate them. I can hear her now. ‘Hunk, why is he so skinny? Hunk, what holidays does he celebrate?’ Hunk, do we want to find him a nice member of the family to marry?’” Lance’s voice raises, though the injury just makes him sound grotesque.

“She met Shiro when he checked in before heading to visit Keith,” she disagrees. A brief murmur starts and ends in the back of her throat as she moves her injured leg, accidentally hitting the bed railing. “I doubt a family marriage is on the table.”

“We didn’t know Keith could have visitors,” James says, stunned by the lilt of hope in his tone, the soft relief that wants to grow and overpower him. Every time he blinks, he remembers Keith, dying and streaked with red.

Neither of the paladins look him in the eye. Lance finally breaks the silence. “He can’t. The only reason Shiro’s been able to is because he was listed as the emergency contact and has power of attorney to make medical decisions.”

“I’m pretty sure he’s convinced one of the nurses to let him sleep in there.”

“Seriously? Is it the one who always jabs us with needles because I’m pretty sure she doesn’t have a soul to convince. I don’t care if she looks like a nice grandmother Pidge, she’s evil,” Lance adds, hand lifted off his controller and stopping her protest.

“Is that safe or sanitary? He’s not allowed visitors for a reason. I'd hate to think Captain would jeopardize Keith's health,” Leif rations. Dread creeps through James. Katie Holt sits up, swift despite her injuries. Lance’s teeth audibly grind.

Rizavi joins her, before James can stop them both from being victims in the bloodiest murder of the war. “Didn’t take Captain for a rule breaker. Though sleeping in the hospital isn’t what I would ignore if I was in charge. Kinda sad but I'm sure we can teach him a thing or two” She tries laughing and smiling with the paladins.

James know they don’t mean harm. Leif focuses on the rules and strategies to separate herself from personal entanglement. She processes differently, and he’ll be the first to defend her for doing so. Yet he knows people who don’t know her can get frustrated. And Rizavi uses humor to defuse. It’s who they are, it’s how how they survived. They’re friends, but not like the paladins. They’re not family. It didn’t take any time for James to acknowledge and accept that truth, a witness to so many adventures Rizavi and Leif didn’t see.

No one is less surprised than James when the green paladin starts screaming in Shiro’s defense, Lance joining her until a nurse comes to order them all out. One escorts Katie out of Lance’s room, supporting her as she limps along the halls.

She calls out, determined to have the last word. “If you think my reaction was loud, wait until I tell Keith about it!”

Out of kindness, no one comments on how her voice wavered and broke on the name Keith.

Out of kindness, none of his friends comment on the blood dripping from his palms, fingers breaking the skin in his closed fist as they pass Keith’s room.

* * *

Captain Shirogran speaks.

Beckoned by his siren, Keith wakes.

* * *

The day Keith is cleared for visitors, James concludes a meeting with Iverson early and realizes he can join his team for lunch. Their voices carry, make them easy to find as he lingers outside the open doorway.

“Leifsdottir, how much effort would it take to create a presentation explaining human emotion to Griffin?” There’s a squeak of a seat spinning around, and James can picture Rizavi balanced precariously on a stool on the other side of the wall. “More importantly, would you want to.”

“The gamut of human emotions or a specific one? Why a holographic medium and not verbal communication? Is it because the nature of the information requires the emphasis of written word and repetition? Are there required design parameters? Between minutes and a day. Also no but I will if necessary.” Papers stop shuffling, and Leifsdottir must be giving Rizavi her full attention now.

“Presentations are more amusing,” Rizavi starts, and James sighs. “However,” and he knows she’s raised an index finger in the air. This is what happens when your mother is a grade school teacher. Rizavi. “Griffin needs all the help he can get learning the human emotion of  _love_.”

An incredulous noise of confusion escapes Kinkade. He only hopes Leifsdottir is staring Rizavi down too.

“You want  _me_ to explain the emotion of love to Griffin? Physical symptoms or psychological?” James is imagining her emphasis on the word me, but it’s all he’s got.

“Both, but I’ll help with the psychological. Kinkade, while we do this, can you go get pictures of Keith Kogane?”

“Why?” Kinkade asks, world weary.

“I said I wasn’t interested,” Leifsdottir reminds her. They're both heroes for not indulging this nonsense.

“And I will drop this subject if either of you can believably tell me Griffin hasn't begun staring down Voltron’s leader like he’s the gravitational pull Griffin centers himself around. We’re in recovery time. It’s okay for him to have a life.”

 _Defend me. Lie._ James projects, indignant and terrified his face did something to make Rizavi take notice. It’s been a long month.

“How he feels is his business,” Kinkade says, in what would be a betrayal from anyone else. James wanted more to dissuade Rizavi but at least it isn't confirmation.

Leif cuts in, abnormally sharp and loud, almost snippy. “You didn’t know them then, and you don’t know the situation now. I recommend you stop, immediately.”

James stays hidden in the hallway as the room goes hushed, jaw tight. He’s never heard Leif like that, and part of him wants to rush in and comfort, run interference.  

“Sorry,” Rizavi says, the quietest he’s heard her. Kinkade’s voice joins in, but he’s now so soft-spoken, the words aren’t easily discernible.

Moment pass. Leif appears in front of him to tug at his wrist, leading him away.

* * *

With years separating him and the Keith of his memories, James Griffin adapts past his soft spot for the leader of Voltron.

_Except he doesn’t._

* * *

"I love you." It's a plaintive, desperate sound from their Captain.

It's a confession James doesn't mean to overhear, stopping mid-step outside the room with a lurch. 

Leif's face is placid, staring out a window for his privacy.

James exhales, straightens his spine. 

When he turns to walk away, she falls into step beside him. 

* * *

_But he will._

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](http://thissupposedcrime.tumblr.com/)   
>  [Twitter](https://twitter.com/SupposedCrime)
> 
> all I do is panic and we've barely got a week left and i'm not ready.
> 
> Sorry this is rushed and jumbled a bit- maybe I'll revise later. I just wanted it posted so I could move on and process with VLD ending. I'll add more notes later and am always down to chat.


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